


Bound

by norgbelulah



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Hannibal is a Cannibal, Hannibal is a Viking Warrior, M/M, Monks, Slavery, Will is a monk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-11 07:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10458264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: Will looked about himself. They were on a small boat. The warrior had been rowing, but now they drifted. They were not far from the shore, heading north. The sack of treasures from the monastery had been tossed haphazardly at Will's feet, which were bound. Will looked up, squinting from his aching head, and asked him. "Why?"The northman smiled. "You were not afraid, little monk. I thought it was interesting. So, you will come with me."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to H for reading all this as I write between reference questions. And thanks to Slippy and some other folks on tumblr for convincing me this is something people want to read.

Will woke, pain in his back, arms and legs, to a gentle rocking. His head felt fuzzy and the light of the dawn hurt his eyes. He heard, all around him, the sound of water, the creaking of wood. His head was tilted up and his neck craned. The grey clouded sky engulfing his whole vision. He groaned and tried to lift his hands to his head, only to find them bound across his lap.

"Monk, you are awake," a rough, strangely accented voice said.

Will tried to lift his head and groaned again.

"Do not move, my friend," the voice said. "I can tell you are hurting. Here."

A cup was presented to his lips and cool water, gently poured into his dry mouth. A dark head appeared above him, features shadowed by the sun behind him. Will could not make out the man's features, but he was large, and his voice deep.

As he drank eagerly from the man's cup, Will closed his eyes. Flashes of light, angry, fearful red and orange--fire, he remembered--echoed across his vision, in his mind. 

"No, oh no," he whispered, pushing the cup away. Will opened his eyes and saw the man who had taken him.

"Good morning, my friend," the man--the monster--said. 

The northmen had come to his monastery in the night. Will had been sleeping on his pallet, woken by shouting in the distance and screams, pounding at the door. They were in the sanctuary, someone said. They were everywhere.

The door burst open, wood splinters flying. Will scrambled across his bed, pressing himself against the wall. A tall warrior, fierce and strong, and carrying an axe, ducked into the low room. He was shouldering a heavy bag--spoils from the sanctuary. There was blood on his hands and his weapon and across his chest.

He blinked at Will. Will stood frozen and stared into his eyes. They were an amber brown and they did not seem angry. As he looked, Will knew--as he had known the brutality of his father, the selfishness of his mother, the faithlessness of their priest, who had sent him away from his village to work and die in this place--that this giant northman would not kill him.

Will blinked and lifted his chin, then cried out, unable to believe that he was wrong, as the warrior surged forward and something heavy came down upon his head.

Will looked about himself now. They were on a small boat. The warrior had been rowing, but now they drifted. They were not far from the shore, heading north. The sack of treasures from the monastery was been tossed haphazardly at Will's feet, which were also bound. Will looked up, squinting from his aching head, and asked him. "Why?"

The northman smiled. "You were not afraid, little monk. I thought it was interesting. So, you will come with me."

 

The warrior's hair was long and braided, with waving strands flying away around his hairline. He was painted all over his bare skin, of which there was much. But the black paint had become wet from the sea spray and the blood and so the patterns had begun to drip, almost as though the circles and swirls were weeping. There was black around his eyes, which were streaked as well.

His face was like a flat plain, his cheekbones high and his eyes set deep. He looked thoughtful, for the most part, as he rowed them further north. He kept his eyes on the horizon, but he smiled when he looked over at Will and saw himself being studied.

"We will meet my Jarl and his men at the appointed place," he said. "So your king cannot follow." He tilted his head when Will gave no indication he'd heard or understood. He added, "I am Hannibal."

Will still did not speak, but nor did he look away from his captor.

"What do they call you, monk?"

Will turned away, gazing back over the land from which he'd soon be spirited. His head pained him still, so he leaned it on his elbow, which he propped up against the side of the boat. He felt Hannibal's eyes on him, but still, he fell asleep.

 

Will woke again to sounds of speaking, growling voices gradually increasing in volume. He didn't understand the language, but was now familiar with the tone and lilt of his captor's voice. He raised his head, from the bottom of the boat, where he'd slumped while drowsing, to see Hannibal scoop up the sack of treasure from the monastery and thrust it at a dark-skinned man with a shaved head. He was broad shouldered and tall, but not so tall as Hannibal. He looked angry and wary as he took the sack. He peered into it, then looked back at Hannibal, then over to Will.

He pointed at Will and said something short and clipped. A question, Will thought.

Hannibal answered in one word.

The other man raised his brows, but shrugged and walked away.

"I have given him all of my spoils from this raid, so that he will not claim you."

Will stared at him blankly.

Hannibal did not seem deterred, as he continued, "You should thank me, monk. Had you gone with the Jarl he would have let his warriors do as they please with you."

Will frowned. He peered at his captor, searching, trying to see him in the deep way he could often see others. Somehow, he could not. "You will not do as you please?"

"I will. But what I please is not rape."

Will shuddered. He did not thank Hannibal. Hannibal did not seem upset. He leaned forward and low into the rowboat, knife in hand, and cut the ropes free of Will's ankles. 

"Come," Hannibal said. "We sail back to Danish lands on the high tide."

And sail they did. Hannibal led Will onto his Jarl's ship, tucking him into a corner among the treasure claimed by the Jarl and his men. Will pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his bound hands around them, among the golden crosses and silver cups and reliquaries of his holy order. 

He watched the warriors sail their ship, talk and laugh among themselves. And he saw one, a thin man with hunted, shifting eyes, watching him. Hannibal was somewhere helping to sail the ship, but this one, the one who watched Will, was a guard of some kind. He stood near the treasure, but he did not look out across the ship for anyone approaching. He only looked at Will.

Later in the day on their first day at sea, Hannibal brought Will some bread and a cup of water. The guard moved away from them, but still stared.

"He will not hurt you. If he tries, he will answer to me," Hannibal said, following the guard with his eyes. He had washed his face of the dark paint. He looked more a man than a monster now.

"He doesn't want to hurt me," Will replied as he chewed the stone-stale bread. "He is angry because of me, but not violent. There is...an inequity he feels--"

"I don't know that word," Hannibal said sourly.

Will glanced at him, surprised. He had thought the warrior fluent in his tongue. "Something is unfair to him. He will call you out. He covets the favor you have been given by taking me." Hannibal frowned again, so he amended, "He wants it. To be able to steal a slave."

Hannibal watched Will carefully. "There is a rule. The spoils were given to the Jarl for breaking it. He cannot take a slave because he cannot buy so much of the Jarl's favor.” Hannibal’s expression turned questioning. “How do you know this about this man? I know you cannot understand our tongue."

Will bit his lip. He should never have said anything. What did he owe Hannibal? He could never seem to keep his mouth shut when his mind told him these things. "I understand the body. How thoughts become movement and expression. I...just know."

Hannibal frowned. "You knew I would not kill you in your sleeping place," he said slowly.

"Yes," Will answered, closing his eyes.

Hannibal let out a slow breath, then nodded. "You will tell me if his movements speak more knowledge to you." He stood and went back to his place among the sailors.

Will turned away from the guard. He did not want to help Hannibal any more than he already had.

Hours later, when the sun was setting, Hannibal returned with more bread and, this time, a cup of ale. Will ate because he was hungry, but did not look at his captor. Hannibal sat with him, watching the guard, who had over the intervening hours begun to look even more angry and mutinous. 

Will was busy soaking his rock-hard bread in the ale when he felt a wide, warm palm move across the back of his neck. He flinched. His bound hands fumbled with his cup, which spilled at his feet. Will looked up at Hannibal fearfully. Hannibal's expression was calm, almost remote, as he continued to hold Will by the neck. He raised his fingers and brushed them through the tangled curls that hung in front of Will's brow, twisting them slightly, smoothing them down and out of his eyes.

"You hide your sharp eyes," he said almost thoughtfully. Will's breath caught. "You must use them for me now. Shall I cut this away?" he asked still fingering Will's hair. "Or will you lift your head and look?"

Will did not answer. His breath felt heavy in his mouth. His body, which had been struck with pain and exhaustion for so much of his life, felt a strange heat, like a fever that did not ache.

Hannibal pressed his grip at the back of Will's neck, then relaxed, and Will's whole body seemed to pulse with it. Hannibal smiled. Will could only watch him and burn.

"You may think, when I am away from you, that you should not listen to me. That we should not be friends. You are wrong. I am the only friend that you will have here." As he spoke, Hannibal continued to grip Will's neck, then relax, over and over, until it was like a caress. Will whimpered and Hannibal watched his face impassively. "You are starved for touch, little one. I know of your God and the laws of his servants. I have met men like you before. They were slaves as well and they fought their masters. They do not live now. It is my wish that you think upon these words and upon the touch of my hands. I can be a good friend to you. Or, you can die never knowing the things I can teach you."

Hannibal glanced away and Will's eyes followed his to the guard skulking in the corner. When Hannibal turned back to Will, he smiled and put his hand--keeping the same grip on Will's neck as before--into Will's lap. Will's mouth fell open in a soundless cry. Hannibal covered Will's mouth with his own, pressing their lips together and moving his mouth as though he wished to devour Will whole. Will burned still and his cock grew hard, even harder as Hannibal took his hand away to stroke Will's cheek. Will's body was so warm that it seemed to melt into Hannibal. His blood pulsed and his hips jerked with it. He moved his mouth against Hannibal's without thought.

As soon as he gave himself over, Hannibal pulled away, smiling softly at the weak cries that spilled from Will's sinful mouth. He stroked Will's face with both hands now and said, "There are many things that I can teach you."

Will shuddered. He had grown to adulthood with the expectation, and eventually a well-developed pride in the idea, that no one would ever touch him in such a way. But his body shook now with a want that he had never before experienced. He did not know that anything could feel that way. It was horrible and wonderful. He blinked back tears.

"Hush," Hannibal said and pressed his lips to the corner of Will's eye, as though he wanted to taste the salt of his despair. "Thank you, little one. You have been very helpful."

Will lifted his eyes to Hannibal, who was not looking back to where the guard no longer leaned.

"Y-you," Will tried to speak, finding it hard to catch his breath. "You used me to spur him to confront you." Will frowned, trying to understand.

"Think it through," Hannibal said.

Will bristled and scowled at him. He hurt so much. He was still hot and angry and he'd--he'd _sinned_ with this monster of a man. He'd _wanted_ the sin of their bodies together. Will cast his eyes down the long ship. "There are only twenty men here," he said. Earlier in the day, the men had been rowing to increase their speed, but now they were all resting, drinking their ale and eating their food. "Fewer, I think, to hear his complaints than on land."

"Very good," Hannibal said. Will couldn't look at him. He did not want this man's praise. "We have another day until we reach home. You should sleep."

"I don't think I will be able to," Will replied. He turned his head to look out across the dark water. He felt heavy, but his mind was whirling. He should pray, but he did not want to with Hannibal there. 

Abruptly, Hannibal left. Will curled around himself again and thought he might turn his mind inward, when Hannibal reappeared with the cup Will had dropped, now full to the brim again with ale.

He handed it to Will, who took it gingerly in both hands. Hannibal leveled his gaze at Will. "This is my share," he said.

Will's brows shot up.

He moved to hand the cup back, but Hannibal stilled him. "Do not refuse this gift," he said and Will found that he could not. He drank the ale, which tasted sweeter over the bitterness that he'd tasted before, in several long gulps. He could not help but give Hannibal a weak smile as he handed the empty cup back.

"Very good, little one," Hannibal said. "I think now you will sleep."

Will frowned, confused by his certainty, head fuzzy. He was tired now, he realized. Maybe he would sleep. Hannibal patted his knee and smiled. Will swayed and mumbled, accusing, "Your drug works fast."

"I can't understand you," Hannibal replied, unconcerned. He caught Will as he slumped forward and spent several moments longer than necessary arranging him among the pile of treasure, wrapping him in a large fur blanket that Will had seen him use as a cloak at the monastery. Will's eyes were heavy, but he fought the drug, which felt more powerful every moment. He thought, vaguely, Hannibal must not want him to see the fight he would have, or wanted him to be a prop, a lifeless thing, not a man with a will and thoughts of his own.

"No prize," he slurred, trying to get up and failing with the slightest pressure from Hannibal's too warm hands. "Man...soul, Han'bal."

Hannibal smiled. "Fair point, little one. But my brothers do not care and you will sleep now anyway. Sleep," he said and stroked Will's head, tangling his fingers in Will's hair. "Sleep."

Will did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal takes Will home.

Will jerked awake. There was shouting in the distance and someone had laid hands on his body.

"Hush," a low voice said. Hannibal. Will blinked, bleary-eyed. He gently shook Will's shoulder. "We have reached land, little one. Come."

Hannibal helped Will to his feet. He allowed him to keep the fur cloak wrapped about himself and steered him to the side of the long ship where some of the men had already disembarked, sacks of treasure and grain held tightly in their fists. 

Will looked around, his head aching from whatever Hannibal had fed him. "Where is your enemy?" he asked.

"We were not enemies, we argued," Hannibal said. "He rests under the waves. He," Hannibal hesitated, "argued poorly."

Will said nothing, knowing very well the man was dead and that he and Hannibal had fought. The other warriors watched Hannibal and he talking with a wariness that bordered on suspicion. Will could tell, and was not entirely surprised, that most of the suspicion was directed at Hannibal and not his captive. Will said quietly, "You call them brothers, yet they do not think of you that way."

Hannibal's answering smile was tight, but not upset. "I am adopted," he replied, his tone light, as though he might have been joking. Will was slightly galled that he could not tell.

Once Will was helped to the dock, he looked around at what seemed to be a small port town. Low huts climbed up a sloping hill to a long building that he guess was some kind of gathering hall. There was a smithy and a small stable sheltering even smaller ponies with pens for sheep nearby.

Hannibal touched Will's arm, drawing him away from the town. Women and children had come from the huts and the hall to greet the men who were unloading the ship, laughing and smiling and embracing. There were none to greet Will's captor. The Jarl eyed Will from the dock, even as a beautiful, dark beauty swept to his side. He nodded to Hannibal, who pulled Will away. "We will take my row boat further up the coast and inland by river," he said. "It is faster than going overland."

"To where?" Will murmured.

"Home," Hannibal said simply.

 

Hannibal rowed the boat. Will's hands were still bound. They were bruised now, and aching from the rope. He curled up around the fur at the bow and raised his face to the sky, closing his eyes. He should pray. He should. God would find him in this strange land. How many times had he been told that God was everywhere?

"What does your God say, little one?" Hannibal asked.

Will wanted to cry. Unlike so many in his order, he had never felt God's words in his mind. He had never felt God's Will on this earth. He had been accused of faithlessness in confession so many times. He had prayed and castigated himself for years. Perhaps this was his punishment.

"Do your gods speak to you?" Will asked hoarsely, without opening his eyes.

"I have no gods," Hannibal answered. "Gods are night stories for children to explain the mysteries of the world. I need no such comfort and will not take it from men seeking power over others with words rather than weapons. I have heard men of your God speak and I know they are the same. Perhaps there is peace in your prayer, but in your priests I have seen the same corruption."

Will turned his face from the sky. His hands itched for the Bible he had shared with the other lay brothers. He could read it, though not very well, and had been practicing his letters so that he could be given a position in the scriptorium, where they copied the sacred texts for others to read. After he had been taught to read, the Bible had always been the easiest way for Will to understand God and worship him. He knew some passages by heart, but having them written out, permanent and beautiful on the page, had always made them seem more real. More true.

Perhaps, as Hannibal said, they were just stories. Will shuddered. He could not believe that. He must not. If he did, God would not deliver him from this place.

"Do not speak such wickedness to me," Will said and opened his eyes to glare at his captor.

Hannibal only smiled and continued to row.

 

Hannibal rowed until dusk and Will dozed. He was weak and tired from little food in the preceding days. His fitful dreams were plagued by strange sensations, memories of Hannibal's hands and mouth on this body and the stomach-gnawing flashes of fear that he had felt the night of the raid. He woke often with a whimper, or choking on a sob, thinking that he would not be able to sleep again. But the rocking of the boat, and the murmurings of Hannibal, often in his own unintelligible language, lulled Will and started the cycle all over again.

Will was fully woken at last by the sound of the side of the boat hitting a dock. "Here, little one. We are home," Hannibal said, his voice tired.

Will stirred and sat up, clutching the fur around him. It was colder here than at the town, or at the abbey. He still wore only his single habit of un-dyed wool, in which all of his order slept. In cold weather, he was used to two layers of the garment as he went about his work, away from the brazier in the lay monks quarters and his straw pallet.

He looked out over the side of the boat and towards another low hut, nestled into a slightly steeper hillside than the town. The surrounding land was the greenest Will had ever seen. His childhood had been spent in a seaside town in Northumberland, where his father was a fisherman. He had traveled down the coast as a youth, sent away to the monks so that he could no longer cause them trouble. Those places were gray and rocky. This place, in the height of summer, almost glowed with greenery, even in the waning light of the evening.

Hannibal tied off the boat and pulled Will forward by his hands, causing him to hiss in pain. Hannibal's eyes flashed, not in anger, but something else, and his lips thinned. He pulled a short blade from his belt and sawed at the ocean salt-soaked cords. Will winced as they came away to reveal red, angry marks, and bruising. 

"It was not I who tied these knots, little one. I am sorry you were hurt," Hannibal said. "Come into my house. I have something that will help."

Will looked down at the blade in Hannibal's hand. He flexed his fingers, clenching both fists. He knew he would not be able to take the weapon from his captor. He said nothing, but he could not help let out a sigh of defeat. Hannibal laughed softly at him.

Instead of his hands, Hannibal held Will at his elbow and drew him inside the hut. The space was longer than it had appeared from the dock and it was cold, as it seemed to have been abandoned in Hannibal's absence.

"You live here alone?" Will asked, keeping his voice low. The quiet of the house--Hannibal's apparent solitude--felt strangely oppressive. 

"Yes," Hannibal answered. "Sit there," he ordered, pointing to a pallet near the fire pit, which was positioned in the center of the structure. 

"Who took care of your animals while you were gone?" Will asked, looking around to the byre at the back of the longhouse. He saw that it was empty. "Why don't you keep animals?" He amended. He could not imagine living alone. "How do you--"

"Hush," Hannibal said, returning to his side. He'd lit the fire while Will was looking around and was now spreading a cold, yellow ointment on Will's wrists. "I do keep animals, but not when I go raiding. I bartered the last goat I did not eat for the knife that cut your bonds. Soon, I will sail back to the town and come back with a cow. I hunt and forage more than I farm. There is always a way to survive," he said, looking long into Will's eyes. "You will help, I think, since you are so worried about it."

Will blushed. "I'm not, I--"

Hannibal laughed at him again, softly, and wrapped his wrists in a clean bandage. Will frowned at it. He rubbed the fabric with the edge of his thumb. It was softer than his habit. Hannibal moved away again, walking to the back of the house. Will watched him bend over something in the corner of the byre. When a moment passed and Hannibal did not look up, Will bolted for the door.

He stumbled, once, and scrambled back up quickly, streaking his habit and hands with mud as he made for the boat. He reached it. Heart pounding and with shaking hands, he pulled at the knot Hannibal had tied off on the dock. He looked up as he jumped into the boat and saw that Hannibal had stopped just outside the door to his house. He was looking at Will with an expression that seemed sad, though it was hard to tell at that distance.

Will pulled the rope into the row boat and scanned the hull, taking in the oars and some meager provisions Hannibal had not pulled from their hidey hole. He swallowed and bent to pull up the oars.

"Where will you go?" Hannibal's voice sounded louder than it should. Will flinched and turned to see him now nearby, at the edge of the river bank that the boat was now sailing down. Hannibal was walking, keeping pace with the current. 

"Home," Will said with a fierce determination he did not quite feel.

"Where is that?" Hannibal asked lightly.

Will scowled, struggling with the oar. He'd been in boats as a boy. He'd gone with his father along the coast and come back with more than his share of food for the table and the market. But this oar, he could barely lift it. It was large and dense and Will was so tired. "England," he replied, growling.

"Of course, little one. But which direction will you go once you reach the mouth of my river?" Hannibal asked. "Where is England from this land? Do you know?"

Will had finally gotten the oars into position. He pulled his weight back but could barely lift them as Hannibal continued, "Will you row across the ocean?"

"I'll get another boat. I'll sneak onto a ship," Will replied. He was breathing hard now, but he brought the oars down and into the water, then back up again. 

The little boat propelled forward. But Hannibal kept pace. "You will be found and you will die," he said. "Perhaps they will violate you first. Your God, will he understand your fate? Or will he damn your wickedness?"

Will huffed. He had no breath for an answer, no room for thinking as he pushed his body back and forth, his arms up and down.

"You are tired, little one. You need food and rest. How far do you think you will get?"

Will pushed harder. His hands pained him, palms burning, and his wrists, already so worn from being bound, screamed in protest. Will cried out, an animal howl of inevitable defeat. 

He dropped the oars and fell back, all power leaving his body, into the hull of the boat. He heard Hannibal wade out into the water and retrieve the rope from the bow. He felt the subtle turn of the world as Hannibal brought it around. He stared up at the sky, tears streaming down his face.

"You are right to fight. It is good that you are strong. But you should make a good plan--to kill me, to escape me, as you like. I do not care, for I will fight too and then we shall see who is stronger and more clever. But think also, of what life you will return to, as I show you what it is to live as I do."

"I don't want to know," Will mumbled petulantly, curling around himself. He'd left Hannibal's fur behind. This was a cold place, even in summer.

Will could hear the smile in Hannibal's voice as he replied, "I am sorry, little one. But you will."

A moment later, the boat bumped up against the dock and Will looked up at Hannibal, standing over him, tying the knot. When he was finished, he looked down and into Will's eyes. "It is hard, leaving places we know for places we do not."

Will scowled at him and did not get up.

Hannibal left him there. Will thought about praying for strength. He wasn't sure how long had passed until Hannibal returned. When he did, he climbed right into the boat, rocking it wildly as he stepped past Will towards the bow. There, he bent down and wrapped something around Will's ankle. Something else clanked against the hull. Hannibal had dropped something heavy.

Will sat up to see it was a chain. He stared at it in horror, then looked up at Hannibal. "Please," he said. "No."

Hannibal did not look sorry. "I would not have put it on you had you not run."

"Please, Hannibal," Will whispered.

Hannibal blinked at the sound of his name on Will's lips and he smiled. "You will have rein to walk here to the riverbank and through or around the house to the edge of the woods."

Will shook his head.

"Yes, little one," Hannibal assured him. ""You will wear my chain until you do not want to go. I am patient. You will see. You will stay with me." 

"No," Will said. The word, forced between his teeth, was not of defiance, but of the swirling cloud of fear in his mind. He continued to cry.

Hannibal looked at him sadly. "You will see," he said as though there was no doubt in his mind.

He patted Will on the head as he climbed from the boat. His fingers lingered through Will's curls. "I have grain stores we will eat tonight. Come and I will show you how to cook it."

He did not pause or turn back to see if Will would come. Will did not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal takes Will inside. Danger follows them home.

Will was awoken in the dark by Hannibal's arms gently lifting him up and out of the boat, first under his arms, then cradling him like a baby. Will instinctively curled into his warmth. "You are a fool, little one," Hannibal said. "Did you want the cold to take you?"

Will's teeth were clenched, freezing, so he did not answer. 

Hannibal laid him down on the pallet next to the fire and pulled the fur over his body. Will pulled it around himself gratefully. He watched Hannibal watching him through bleary eyes. After some time, Hannibal mused, "You did not eat and you have lain long in the cold. I wonder if you shall become ill."

Will turned away and slept again.

 

He did not become ill, but he did sleep halfway through the next day. when he woke, Hannibal shoved a bowl of gruel into his hands wordlessly. Will ate, shoveling the food into his mouth so quickly that he did not taste it until he was almost finished. When he was finally able to savor the last few spoonfuls he looked over at Hannibal, who was sharpening the blade of his axe, and said, "This is very good."

Hannibal looked up. "Thank you," he said. And then a word in his own tongue that Will took to mean the same. Will repeated it back to him and Hannibal smiled at him.

"You understand that you are not going anywhere, do you not, little one?"

Will let out a slow breath and nodded.

"Good," Hannibal said and something low in Will's belly warmed at the simple word of praise. He pressed down the feeling. He should not crave such a thing, not from this man, who tore him from his life and his God. "Things will go better for us both if you..." He paused then, and Will realized he was searching for a particular word. "Cooperate," he said at last, speaking carefully. "Yes?"

Will wasn't sure if we was asking if the word was correct or if Will would do it, but he nodded slowly regardless. He did not want to be cold and hungry anymore. He did not want to cause harm to Hannibal, even if he was Will's captor. He would be a good Christian. Perhaps it should have occurred to Will before that he could Witness to Hannibal, he could teach him the Word of God.

Hannibal smiled, as though something were funny, and said, "Very good, little one." He said, then spoke a word in his own tongue that sounded very much like, "good." Will said that back with the same accent. He flinched when Hannibal patted his arm and said the word again. 

"There is little food here now, so I must go into the forest to hunt," Hannibal said, lifting his ax. "While I am gone, I would like you to clean the dust from this place and air it out. I was away some months a-raiding."

Will pressed his lips together and nodded again. 

"Do not expect me back before dusk. My prey often emerge when shadows lurk among the trees." And then he left, striding out of the back of the longhouse and up the hill and into the forest beyond.

Will watched him until he disappeared and then he walked out towards the river. His chain would let him reach the edge, to fetch water he supposed, but no further than a foot into the slow current. Will picked his way, barefoot as he was, in the large circle the chain would allow him around the house. The chain itself was affixed to a heavy slab of stone by a large nail that seemed to have been driven into it. If Will walked through the house and out the back, he could reach the edge of the woods into which Hannibal had disappeared.

Will went back inside and tugged at the chain. It clearly wasn't going anywhere and Will was positive, even if he could find a tool with which to chip away at the stone, it would take him much longer than the scant hours Hannibal would be gone and he would most certainly notice any damage Will might cause to it.

With little else to do, and a lifelong practice of never being idle, Will began to do as Hannibal directed him; he cleaned.

Despite a different layout, and actually a little more space, the house itself was not so different from the one Will's mother had kept at the seaside in Northumberland. There were more furs and heavy blankets that needed to be aired out, and a bit more floor to be swept, but Will found the tasks grounding in a way that working in the fields and yards of the abbey had never been for him.

The day passed quickly. When Will judged it to be late afternoon, he took a break to reheat some of the gruel that Hannibal had made for them the previous night. After he finished, he left a pot of water boiling on the fire for Hannibal to wash up with when he came back. He was pulling some of the furs back inside from where he had hung them to air out, when he heard the unmistakable sound of oars slipping through the water at his back. He stiffened, turned fearfully, and saw a single man in a row boat much like the one that Hannibal had left tied to the dock.

The man was one of the raiders who had traveled with Hannibal and his Jarl. He had seen Will before, had witnessed whatever it was Hannibal had done to that guard. As he rowed closer, Will could see hate and calculation in his eyes. Will knew this man was a friend of the dead man and was here to take Hannibal's prize from him in retribution.

Will bolted into the house, sprinting through to the back door by the byre. As he knew it would, though his mind had not yet caught up to his fear, the chain caught and held him back just at the edge of the trees. He stumbled and fell with a cry. He turned back to the house. The man had come around the side of it. There was a short sword in his hand and murder in his eyes.

"Hannibal," Will shouted into the trees. He got up again and scrambled back into the house. There were weapons there. At least one Will had noted. A huge axe, mounted on the wall above Will's pallet, and several knives for cooking and eating.

The man yelled something at him, something clipped and angry. A yank on Will's chain pulled his leg out from under him before he could reach the wall and sent him barreling to the ground. Will clawed at the floor. He heard himself screaming and realized it was Hannibal's name, over and over again, as his assailant reeled him back toward the byre like a fish on a line. 

Will struggled in vain. He was pulled back and back, but as he passed the fire at the center of the structure, his eyes caught on the pot of water. Desperately, he reached for it, screaming as the hot iron handle scorched his palm, but holding it steady enough to cast the boiling water into the eyes of the man who would kill him.

The chain went slack and Will scrambled away, hitting his back against the wall next to his pallet, where he could stand and reach for Hannibal's axe. If only his legs would work, he could get it. He could try. He looked up at it desperately and whimpered.

The man was screaming again, pressing his hands to his face. He'd fallen to the ground, but was rallying quickly, an animal growl escaped his lips which were twisted in a grotesque scowl. He reached again for Will's chain.

Before he could touch it, a sword emerged from his chest. His reddened eyes bulged in surprise and blood dribbled from his open mouth. Hannibal stood behind him with an utterly blank expression on his face.

Will was frozen. His legs still would not work, nor could he speak as Hannibal's cold stare transferred from the man he'd just run through to Will cowering in his home, clutching at his hand.

Hannibal blinked, put his foot against the man's back, and with a tug, pulled his sword from flesh. A fresh spray of blood emerged. Will made a choking sound he could not stifle. Hannibal calmly cleaned his blade on his tunic, sheathed it, and made his way over to a rack hung on the wall with jars and bottles filled with things Will had not been able to identify as he was cleaning. He plucked something from its place and pulled a tightly wound ball of that white bandage from another.

He then approached Will very slowly and sat down next to him on the pallet. He looked directly into Will's eyes as he spoke. "Spread the amount of these herbs you can hold between your thumb and first finger over the burn, little one. Then wrap it in the bandage. Keep it dry. No water to wash it. No ointment from yesterday for this wound. Do you understand?"

Will nodded.

Hannibal stood and wrapped the fur cloak Will had just taken down from the line around his shoulders. "I will return as soon as I can," he said. He turned then and picked up the dead man, throwing the weight of him over one shoulder as though he were only a sack of grain. He walked out of the house and into the trees. 

Will could only watch him go. He was not sure how long he sat there, staring after him, mind terrifyingly, blessedly blank, before he remembered Hannibal's instruction. After he was finished, Will curled around himself and the fur and tried to find sleep.

He did not find it. He laid awake and shivered, though he was not cold, not with Hannibal's cloak over him. Long after dark, Hannibal returned carrying a sack that he revealed to be many cuts of meat from what looked to be a large animal.

Will stared at them for a long while as Hannibal washed his hands and face, in water he heated himself, and set another to boil, presumably for food.

Finally, Will found his voice. "What is it?"

"Pig. A wild one." Hannibal's answer seemed short. Incomplete, somehow.

Will frowned at him in confusion. He was having a hard time forming thoughts, questions. He was tired. Exhausted. Yet he had not slept. He asked eventually, "You butchered it in the forest?"

Hannibal looked up from where he was poking through his herbs and potions along the wall. "I thought to spare you," he said.

Will shook his head. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, so he spoke slowly. "My father was a fishmonger when he caught more than we could eat. I spent my childhood in a market stall with him. The butcher worked next door. I was no scholar for the monks either, Hannibal." He looked up at his captor, who had saved him. "I know how to gut an animal."

Hannibal surveyed him. "Yet you hesitated to take down my weapon and gut the man who would kill you?"

Will looked away. "I-I couldn't," he said. Though he had wanted to. Would have, if he could. 

"You would not, when death is inside this house?" Hannibal's tone was incredulous. "When it holds the chain that binds you?" 

Will flinched when Hannibal wrapped his fingers around the links and shook the chain. His expression softened minutely and he immediately dropped it.

"You were afraid," Hannibal said then, as though he was astonished.

"Of course," Will murmured huddling into the cloak, hiding his face. "I told you, I was not afraid of you only because I knew you would not kill me."

Hannibal approached him so softly, Will jumped when warm fingers brushed the curls at his forehead to the side. "It clings to you," Hannibal said softly. "Fear." Will shuddered. "It attacks your body and mind, as Garrett would have done." he frowned at Will, seemingly perplexed.

Will shut his eyes. He wished Hannibal would not have named the dead man. His bulging eyes would haunt Will's dreams no matter what. To give him a name meant Will would need to think of it when he prayed for the man's soul.

Will began to cry.

Hannibal made a low sound, very faint, and moved once again to Will's side. "Ah, little one," he breathed as he pulled Will into his arms. Will went without protest. He did not cling. He only cried harder.

Hannibal ran a soothing hand through Will's hair and began to speak, so softly, in his own tongue. Every so often he would say something in English, like, "Lie down now," then, "Watch the fire, little one. It will chase your thoughts away."

Will thought at some point he mumbled, "I should pray for him." But if Hannibal responded it was only in the slow murmur of his own language, which did not cease for an amount of time Will could not grasp. Eventually Will was lying with his head pillowed in Hannibal's lap, his eyes unfocused on the lazily flickering fire. He was warm and comfortable and his mind felt pleasantly fuzzy. He thought, fleetingly, just before he fell asleep, that he was not sure that he'd ever felt so good in his life. And that feeling, in particular, was the most dangerous of all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal work together and talk more about religion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has commented so far on this fic. I haven't responded, but I read all of them and find them super encouraging. <3

They worked for the next two days to smoke, salt, and pickle most of the pork Hannibal had brought from the forest. Will had done work of this nature before, but Hannibal was unusually particular about the processes. He explained each step in great detail--as great as his skill at English would allow anyway--and did not hesitate to correct Will's efforts when he felt it necessary.

Will was, to his surprise, charmed by how fastidious his captor could be about such things. It seemed strange a man of his demeanor, looming so large and so strong, would be so preoccupied with the minutiae of the meat he put into his body. Yet, Will soon learned that Hannibal was just as particular about everything else that he ate, and also a great many things that he made with his hands or used in his home.

Will, not wanting to make waves or show ingratitude for his life after his encounter with Garrett, took the direction gracefully. So much so, in fact, that Hannibal praised him often, repeating that word that sounded so much like _good_ , but full and round in a way that settled warm and low in Will's belly.

He also taught Will how he liked the tools and other items they used to be cleaned and where to place them when they were finished with their work. Everything in Hannibal's home had a place that followed a logic, a way of thinking and moving, that was suited particularly to Hannibal. It made Will feel clumsy and strange because he could not move through his work in the elegant, dance-like way that Hannibal did. And he felt stupid and forgetful when he did not immediately reach for something when Hannibal requested it from him.

In the evening, after it was too dark to continue their work preserving the meat, Hannibal showed Will how he preferred to roast the few fresh pieces he had kept back. He showed him where he stored his root vegetables and dried grains, beans, and even some fruit. Will marveled at the sophistication of Hannibal's diet and said as much, admitting, "Even the Abbey, which employs the work of ten other lay monks like me could not support the propagation of such a variety of foods."

Hannibal smiled, clearly pleased at Will's astonishment. "Ah, but I feed only myself, and now you, little one. The place you used to live must feed many people, must produce much more. Nearly all of my time is spent in the pursuit of this sustenance, both farming and foraging, to live, to enjoy, while your former brethren eat only for the energy to praise your god, yes?"

Will frowned at the implication that Will was no longer a monk, even though he did no longer live at the Abbey. But he did not challenge the idea, saying only, "Yes, you're right." He asked then, "What do you do with the time you do not spend on sustenance?" Will had not had time he could call free since he was a small child. Even a little of such a thing seemed quite beyond him. He felt intrigued by the idea and then almost immediately guilty. He wished he hadn't asked, but the question could not be taken back.

Hannibal closed the door to the dry store with a faint smile. "You shall have to wait and see, little one."

Will thought to himself that he would not. He would pray, like he was supposed to. He would contemplate and worship God, like he had somehow not been able to bring himself to do since he was taken away from the Abbey. Since he had first laid eyes on Hannibal.

 

Some days later, Hannibal said he was going to the town--the one where the Jarl lived--to barter for a cow and a sheep. He seemed pleased at the prospect so Will smiled and said, "I will await your return."

Hannibal laughed, making Will's cheeks flush. "No, little one. You shall come with me."

Will frowned. "Why?"

Hannibal's expression was inscrutable. "Does it matter? This is what you will do."

Will glared. "Will you hold me by a leash then? In front of your town?"

"Will you make me?" Hannibal asked, tilting his head. 

Will cast his eyes down. He realized his hands were tangled in the chain at his feet. No, he could not run. He knew that. He shook his head.

"Will you follow me then, and do as I ask you to do?" Hannibal leaned forward and took Will's chin in his two fingers. Will did not want to look in his face. "You are afraid again," Hannibal said, once more sounding far too surprised. "I will protect you from the men, as I have done twice now. Do you doubt me?"

Will had to look into his eyes as he protested, "No, Hannibal. I don't." 

He had not meant to speak those words so emphatically. Why shouldn't he doubt this man? He was a villain, a murderer, Will's captor, a barbarian of a terrifying horde. He could be the devil himself. Will should absolutely doubt him.

Yet he had said that he did not and Will was not in the practice of lying.

Was it only that Hannibal had saved his life? That they had prepared meals together, had broken bread side by side at Hannibal's fire. He was a terribly inscrutable man, one who possessed the most veiled mind that Will had ever encountered. How had Will come to deny any doubt in this man if he could not see him as he so clearly saw others?

Will blinked and hastily added, "I do not doubt you wish me to be alive and safe and live with you here. I know you will not let harm come to me in your town."

"Then?" Hannibal seemed genuinely curious.

"It doesn't matter," Will replied. His eyes skittered away from Hannibal's, but his captor's hold on Will's chin did not flag. 

"You will go if I say you go, little one. You will answer when I ask. What is it you fear about the town?"

"The people," Will managed to reply. When Hannibal did not let go and did not look away, Will added, "Their eyes. Their...judgement."

"You feel shame for being my slave," Hannibal said.

Will said nothing. He jutted his jaw. Hannibal's grip did not waver.

Hannibal's eyes held questions, which he did not hesitate to voice. "Does not your God love even one brought so low as you? Is it not only his judgement you care for?"

Will's eyes flashed and he finally jerked away from Hannibal's hold. "No one is without sin," he spat. "I never thought I had much pride, but..." He could not finish speaking. If he knew his sin, he should strive to overcome it. If it was pride that balked him, he should swallow it, even if doing so were to benefit Hannibal, who he should not trust.

Hannibal surveyed him and did not move out if Will's space. "You may walk untethered if you swear upon your God you will not run. If you run, little one, I will hobble you and it will be a great inconvenience to us both."

"If I swear to God that I will not," Will answered, "and if I do run, worse is in store for me than a hobbling."

Hannibal smirked at him. "Is there?"

Will scowled and said, "I swear to The Lord, my God, that I will not run from you when we go to the town today, Hannibal."

Hannibal laughed. "You were born to speak at the _ting_ , little one, and say the laws." He turned away and took the great axe down from his wall. He levered it, holding it loosely above the thick leather cuff around Will's ankle. He grabbed the chain with his free hand. "Hold the chain taut," he instructed to Will.

Will did, fearfully pulling his leg as far away as the chain would allow. He cried out when Hannibal brought the axe down a hair's breadth away from his flesh. Hannibal smiled. "You will carry the sack."

 

As they rowed toward the town, this time in tandem, Will felt compelled to explain himself further. He said, "It's not just their judgement."

Hannibal said nothing, but met Will's eyes in a way that showed his piqued interest.

"I used to play a game at the market stall with my father," Will said. "When men came to barter for the fish, I would cough to tell him how much higher they would go."

"We shall have to play a similar game today, then little one," Hannibal said with a smile.

Will looked away. "It was all fine when it put more pennies in our coffer, but I wasn't...I was only a boy. I wasn't always right. When I wasn't, Father would be angry. He would hit."

"You are worried I will hit you?"

"No," Will said, shaking his head and surprising himself. But he felt deeply that he knew Hannibal was not a man who struck in anger. Not over pennies or cows. "I only told you because..." Will wasn't sure how to continue. He didn't know why he wanted so badly to tell Hannibal everything. "Soon it wasn't just at the market for fish and pennies. Soon they wanted me to tell them secrets. Things I could see that no one else knew. Our closest neighbor's newborn babe was not her husband's. The tavern keeper kept money back from his tithe, a little every month to save for thatching his roof. Father wanted to steal it. He wanted a bigger boat to catch more fish for more pennies. He took me there, to see if the man would give away his hiding spot. But Mother was wracked by guilt and told the priest."

Hannibal made a noise of understanding, of sympathy perhaps. Will continued to row and kept his eyes on the horizon at Hannibal's back. 

"He could have called me a witch, had me burned or drowned. My father had made that clear enough when all of it began. I don't think they ever thought that's what I was, but they knew what the church could do. They encouraged me anyway, of course."

Will chanced a look at Hannibal, who was watching Will almost hungrily.

Will continued, "But the priest didn't do that. He refused to believe I had any such talent at all, called me a liar, the worst of all sinners, and sent me to the Abbey. Sent me specifically branded a liar and unworthy, so they shunted me to the lowliest of places, the harshest of duties. And I was told to--and eventually I did--love and thank God for all of it."

"Would you rather have been a fisherman?" Hannibal asked quietly.

"I don't know," Will said. "For so long I thought...it seemed as though I was destined for my monk’s life. I was at peace with it."

"You are not now?"

Will laughed hollowly. "You're the one who keeps saying it's not my life any longer."

"And you do not pray."

Will shuddered. He had known that Hannibal knew about his religious crisis. It was still uncomfortable to voice the truth. "No, I don't."

"Yet you speak as though your faith is still in tact."

"It is," Will protested. He pulled up on the oars, held them up and out of the water too long. Hannibal followed suit and they drifted down the river, staring at each other. "I still believe. I do." He knew his words sounded defensive, desperate. He said them anyway. "I just don't want to talk to God right now."

Hannibal said. "You are angry with him."

Will refused to voice that truth. He was angry, certainly. But the tone and burn of the anger was so similar to that of his roiling, conflicting feelings toward Hannibal himself, he might as well be refusing to pray to his captor. Will's stomach churned at the blasphemous thought. He buried his head in his hands.

"Little one, I am so pleased you told me of your life and faith, but this does not explain why you fear the town," Hannibal said gently.

Will laughed again and pressed his hands to his eyes. Perhaps if he could not see them...

"I am not afraid of the town," he said slowly, not lifting his head. "It is the people I fear. That I will know them too well. That they will see what I am and I will see myself in their eyes when they fear me."

"You fear yourself. Your...talent."

"I read strangers about as well as I read words on a page," Will confessed. "Not fluently, but like a puzzle I cannot look away from. It is easy to look away from friends, from people I know and see often. My sight, my...knowing is clouded by my memories of them. They become unclear. It's better that way. I grew used to the same faces at the Abbey. It was easy to pretend I had no talent at all. Until I saw you, I was almost convinced I _had_ lied to them all."

Hannibal's touch, just at his wrist, drew both of Will's hands away from his eyes. He looked up and saw nothing no other man would know in Hannibal's expression, which was pleased, somehow, and calm. "There is a simple solution to these worries."

Will's mouth fell open. "There is?"

"You shall keep your eyes on the ground," Hannibal replied. "And you shall only look at the people of the town when I say you shall."

Will stared at him.

"If your god does not want this gift, little one, I shall savor it."

That is how Will came to walk the muddied streets of the Jarl's town at the mouth of the river with his eyes downcast, looking only at the heels of Hannibal's boots.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal go to the town. When they come back, things have changed.

Will could hear the people talking. He didn't understand them, but he heard them. It was easy to assume they were talking about him, but as he could not see their faces, it was just as easy to believe they were not. Will found himself smiling softly as he walked.

He stopped when Hannibal did and allowed himself to be pulled forward alongside his captor. He kept his eyes down and found himself actually leaning into Hannibal's arm, steadying himself on Hannibal's strong frame. 

Hannibal spoke in his unfamiliar tongue and the only word Will could pick out was the one that meant 'good.' He said it at the same moment his hand came to rest at the back of Will's head, sending a thrill down his spine and warming his belly in a way that was distinctly terrifying. Will trembled and whoever Hannibal was speaking to laughed.

In that moment, Will prayed out of a sincere, silent desperation.

_Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me._

Hannibal and the man Will had not yet looked at began to debate something. Will could tell by the patter of their exchange. The air smelled of animal: shit and hay and over-ripe fruits. Hannibal walked them into a stable and said, "Give me the sack and look about yourself, little one."

Will, God help him, lifted his eyes. The stable was unremarkable, as was the man. Somehow, Will had been expecting more. The man looked into Will's eyes and snorted, then mumbled something to Hannibal. Will didn't need to know his language, he could see out of the man's eyes. And so he did.

_The slave who stands before me fights not a whit. Not even captive of the warrior for a full month, he has been so thoroughly tamed, I am frightened. I know that the warrior is not from my lands, is not of my people, and I have been wary of him. Now, as he stands before me with his thrall, I will do anything I can to get him gone._

"Speak your mind," Hannibal said to Will softly. "He understands none of your tongue."

Will knew this. This man feared many things. He would never have been so curious as to seek out knowledge of a foreign land or language. "You frighten him, More so because I appear so tamed by you. Whatever you wish, he will give away for a song. Unless the giving will take away from his bare livelihood."

Hannibal did not look at Will as he spoke and he reacted in no outward way, yet he said, just as soft as before, "He does not appear afraid."

Truly, the man did not. He gazed at Hannibal with clear, steady eyes. He was not shaking or sweating. He only watched, with a slight, strange, smile on his face. The cow he'd brought forward was small, but it was only a heifer. Will knew animals enough to know that.

"No," Will replied simply. Then said, "Has she been bred?"

Hannibal shook his head. "Her dam calved two at once, Hrolf has no need for her and cannot afford to feed her much longer. I have a neighbor who will breed her for me when the time comes."

"Then you knew that she could be bought for little enough," Will said, turning now to Hannibal, who smiled. "What need have you for me?"

"Much, I think, in the future," Hannibal replied as he dug into the sack and produced a thin silver bracelet. Will eyed the object, unsure if it had come from the coffers at the Abbey. It could have been something Hannibal had come across before, or it could have been a donation from one of the fine ladies of Northumbria.

Hannibal tore the bracelet in half with a twist. The man's eyes widened and he held out his hand, stammering something in their language. Hannibal dropped half the bracelet into the man's hand and smiled, grunting something that Will interpreted to be thanks. He took the rope tied around the heifer's neck.

"Come, little one," Hannibal said. Will followed, casting a parting glance at the man. He saw that the fear this poor farmer felt was just as much of Will as it was of Hannibal. Will let his gaze fall back to Hannibal's heels and, despite himself, he smiled.

 

Hannibal paid visits to a blacksmith and another farmer, from whom he bought a hen and a rooster. He did not ask Will to look anywhere other than the ground for the rest of the time they were in the town. Will looked up of his own volition when his feet took him to the dock where they had tied up the row boat.

He turned to Hannibal at his side. "What will you do with the heifer?" he asked. "She can't go in the boat."

Hannibal smiled. "Indeed not. I will walk her home. You will row with the chickens."

Will blinked at him.

Hannibal seemed amused. "It will be a leisurely journey, as you will stay within my sight from the riverbank. If you do not, I will slaughter her, hunt you down and hobble you, and we will have no milk for still another year."

Will nodded. "I don't think I could row much faster upstream anyway," he said. Hannibal chuckled at him, but Will was serious, so he frowned.

"Good, little one," Hannibal said. 

Will felt that warmth, the one that was rapidly becoming so familiar, the one that could at any moment burn fever hot, curl in his stomach. His eyes widened. He almost pressed his hand to his belly. The pet name felt too right. Not strange enough anymore. So he said, "My name is Will."

Hannibal raised his brows, quirked his lips into a thing that was not a smile, and said nothing.

It was only after Will had tied off the boat and let loose the chickens, when Hannibal came out the back of the house from where he'd bedded down the heifer in the byre and said, "Will. Come," that he realized the mistake he'd made.

Helpless, Will went.

 

Hannibal did not chain Will again that night, nor the day after. They did not speak of it and when Will strayed in the waning light of the afternoon to the edge of the woods, looking out into the trees in search of something he wasn't sure of at all, Hannibal only had to speak his name to turn him back towards the house.

"Will," he said. It was just the second time Will had heard it from his lips.

Tears welled in Will's eyes and they spilled down his cheeks as he stumbled away from the woods, to Hannibal, who he had somehow forgotten how to hate, who he'd never really known to fear. 

He thought of the farmer who'd feared Hannibal, feared Will too. He thought of his own pleasure at such wickedness. _I am your thrall_ , he thought wildly. _You think--no--you know, that I will not run from you now._

"Oh, little one," Hannibal said softly when Will came near enough that he could see his tear-streaked face. He said something in his own language and lifted a hand, reaching out to cup Will's face.

Will allowed it for only a moment, only the barest touch of Hannibal's fingers across his cheek, before he jerked away. He glared at Hannibal, who gazed steadily back at him.

"Hobble me," Will said in a shaky voice.

"No," Hannibal replied.

Will felt something large and hot rise up in him like a wave. Hannibal caught Will's arm before it could strike across his face. Will's lip curled disgustedly and he growled as he tried to pull away. Hannibal held him fast. Another animal sound, this one mournful, pitiable, fell from Will's lips as he struggled.

Hannibal spoke again in his own language and Will heard his own name among the strange, musical words. He let out a sob as Hannibal pulled him into the house by his arm.

"I'll run," Will said through his tears. "I'll run. Tomorrow I will. Hannibal."

Hannibal deposited him by the fire and murmured more words Will did not understand. Will sank to his knees. He could not catch his breath.

"Hobble me. You said you would. Hannibal. I'll run, I swear it."

Hannibal crouched low. He caught Will's chin between his two fingers and stared into his eyes. Will could not look away. His breath was too fast and his lip trembled.

"Do you swear it to your god?" Hannibal asked.

Will choked out another sob. "Please," was the only word he could manage to speak.

_What God?_ he thought to himself and cried harder.

"I'll run. I'll run," he insisted.

"No, little one," Hannibal said softly. His hands cradled Will's face now, and his fingers sunk into Will's hair, carding softly through his curls. Will's breath hitched as his body betrayed him and he relaxed into Hannibal's touch. "You will not."

Will looked up at him and wept anew because he was right. He'd always been right and still Will did not hate him.

Hannibal moved away moments later. Will let out a pathetic whine when his hands fell from Will's head. But he was not gone for long, returning swiftly with a steaming cup of something hot, which he passed to Will. "Drink it," he said. 

Will remembered the drugged ale he'd taken on the ship and, helpless as ever, drank the stuff anyway. It did not taste the same. This was not ale, but something mulled and fruity. It tasted good. 

"You wish me to sleep?" he asked after he drained it. The words felt thick on his tongue.

"Only if that is what you wish," Hannibal replied. 

He settled across the fire from where Will knelt. He began to prepare a meal. Will liked to watch Hannibal cook. He'd never allowed such a thought into his mind before, but now he let his enjoyment settle around him. He always liked to watch Hannibal cook. Usually, he would help in some way, but now he settled on the floor, his back leaning against the bench around the fire, and he watched Hannibal because he liked to watch him. 

He found himself smiling as Hannibal cut several vegetables and put them in his new iron pot where water was boiling. He smiled wider when Hannibal caught his eye. " _Good_ , Will," Hannibal said. "You are doing what you wish to do."

Will made an agreeable sound behind his closed mouth. His head felt pleasantly fuzzy. "Drugged me again," he made his mouth say.

Hannibal smiled as he worked. "You knew that I had."

Will hummed his assent, his eyes caught on Hannibal's swift hands. He thought he would like them in his hair again.

"Perhaps," Hannibal said, as though Will had spoken. Had he? "Where else would you like them?"

Will blinked. "Don't know," he murmured. He felt warm now, not just because the fire was burning hot and the water was boiling so close to him. He felt the heat under his skin. He pulled at his habit.

"Would you like me to teach you the things we spoke of on the Jarl's ship?" Hannibal's hands had stopped moving. The lid was on the pot and Will's mouth was parted as though he were about to speak. There were no words in Will's mind, though. He only felt hot.

Will pulled his habit over his head. He wore only a loin cloth underneath it, but he didn't care. He felt a relief so keen that he laughed with it. He rubbed his hand through his hair and smiled, blinking hazily at Hannibal.

"You're beautiful, little one," Hannibal told him.

Will made a shushing sound and shook his head. He should pray for Hannibal, he thought, for being a liar. But Will didn't pray anymore. He didn't like to. Maybe he had never liked to pray. He blinked at that thought and smiled again. "I don't like to pray," Will told Hannibal.

"Right now, you should only do things that you like, Will," Hannibal said and Will nodded. If he didn't like it, why was he always thinking about praying? "What else will you do?"

Will thought about it for a moment. He had worked in the fields and the yard at the Abbey and prayed. He didn't like those things. He did like working here with Hannibal. Cleaning the house and preparing the meat. His thoughts skipped back to his childhood, which somehow came more easily to his mind than anything else. He smiled and said, "I like swimming. Can we swim, Hannibal?"

"It is night now, little one, and the water is too cold. We will swim another day."

Will hummed again and said, turning his head toward the door, "I like to fish. Can we fish? It's not too cold for them to swim."

Hannibal seemed delighted by something. His smile was fleeting, disappearing and reappearing in an instant, but his eyes were bright as he watched Will. "It is still night and too dark, little one, to see the fishes. We can fish another day."

Will frowned. He did want to do something. But he didn't know what he liked, it seemed. At the Abbey he'd risen with the sun and there was no lamp or fire in the room where he slept. At night, he was to pray and sleep. But he didn't want to sleep and he didn't like to pray. And Hannibal said to do what he liked. "What do people do in the night?" he asked.

Hannibal tilted his head very carefully. Will felt himself blush, another flush of heat not of the fire spread under his skin. It felt almost too tight, his skin. He thought he might want to crawl right out of it, peel it off as he had his tunic.

"I think you have some idea," Hannibal replied.

Will's eyes fell to the fire. Maybe he should put his hand in it, to remind himself of what would come should he allow himself to be tempted. Suddenly, Hannibal was at his side, his fingers gripping Will's wrist as he held his hand out to the flames. Will's mouth fell open.

"I will not allow you to hurt yourself," Hannibal said very softly. 

Will looked into his eyes. "What if I want to?"

"Do you, little one? What was the thought that caught in your mind when you reached out with this hand? Is this truly what you would like to do?"

Will hesitated. "I...should," he said frowning. "I should want--"

"But you do not. So you will not." Hannibal gently took Will's hand away from the fire, gentling his grip, and with the soft pads of his fingers, drew small circles across his too-warm knuckles. "Now, what do you like?"

Will watched Hannibal's fingers. "This," he said. "I like what you are doing."

"Good, Will. Then I will keep doing it."

"I like it when you say that word," Will said, his voice going soft and dreamy. He tried to say it like Hannibal, with the rounder but shorter vowel and the sharper consonant at the end. _Gudt_ maybe, but he felt like he mangled it. His tongue was clumsy and Hannibal's fingers had not ceased their movement.

Hannibal expelled a breath that might have been a laugh, but Will didn't care really. He smiled when Hannibal said, "I'm happy to know that, little one. Would you like to know more of my language?"

"Yes," Will replied, though he could not say he'd ever thought about it before. "Because I do not want to run away."

"Very, very good," Hannibal murmured. Then he said another word, just twice in the same way and the word again that meant _good_. 

Will nodded and said the words back and Hannibal praised him again. Will felt warm and his head felt fuzzy and he felt much more tired than before. He slumped slightly and his shoulder and head fell across Hannibal's chest. Will curled into Hannibal's embrace and sighed. 

"I like this," he said and Hannibal's arms tightened around him. "Never held before," he mumbled.

"Do you like to think of the past, little one?" Hannibal asked, his mouth very close to Will's ear.

Will shivered and Hannibal held him tighter. "No," Will realized. In every possible way, it seemed, Will's present with Hannibal was better than where he had been before. If God had been with him then, and was not now, how could that be?

"Then you will not."

"Because we are only doing things we like," Will said, nodding. It felt good. Will was not used to doing and feeling what he wanted. But he was not thinking of the past, because he did not like it, so he didn't dwell. He smiled and pressed closer. Hannibal stroked his hair.

"The food will be ready in a moment, little one," Hannibal said. "Are you hungry?"

Will hummed his assent again and carefully pulled himself away from Hannibal, who cupped his face with both hands. Will looked up at him and said, "I like you, Hannibal."

Hannibal kissed his forehead. "I am glad, Will."

When they ate, Hannibal sat near to Will again. Their thighs touched as they bent over their bowls of good, hearty stew. Hannibal had to catch Will's empty bowl as it slipped from his fingers when he was finished. He was so tired.

Hannibal laid Will down in his lap and pulled fingers through his hair, as he had the night the man, Garrett had come and died. He said, "Look into the fire, little one, and I will tell you a story."

"I'd like that," Will murmured, happily drowsy.

"I thought so," Hannibal said and then he began to speak in his own language. 

The tale flowed from his lips and washed over Will, filling his mind with a strange comfort, despite his ignorance of the words and their meaning. The fire filled his vision, crackling and flickering, swaying as though in a beautiful dance. Will thought he might like to dance some day as his eyes fell closed and he drifted away on the tide of Hannibal's low, steady voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is about a chapter of this left that I have written. I ran into a bit of writer's block and am hoping to get over it soon but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> We'll see what happens...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An empty house, a dog, a revelation.

Will woke late in the morning to an empty house. He'd been moved to his sleeping pallet on the other side of the fire and covered with a blanket, but his habit was gone from the floor where he remembered discarding it. Will carefully did not think very hard about the things he'd said and thought the previous night. 

He wrapped himself in the blanket and made his way down to the river's edge, where he sunk his hands into the water. He let them soak up the cold of it, splaying his fingers, wiggling them, as though they were worms on a hook.

He'd said he liked to fish. Will had forgotten that. As a lay monk, he was required to work in the fields surrounding the Abbey and with the animals in the yard and the stables. While the Abbey was near the ocean and a few abundant streams, Will had never been tasked with fishing. It had been a favorite pastime of several of the senior monks and also the Abbot, so no one as lowly as he would ever have been told to go, even during the Lenten season when no meat other than fish was consumed at all.

What else about himself had Will forgotten? What else had been so consumed by his education and life within the church that it was now as though it had never been? 

Will sighed and bent over the crystalline water. He thought to pray for clarity, for insight, but he stopped himself once more. He had not prayed here. He would not now, because it was true: he'd never enjoyed prayer. He'd never felt listened to, or loved. 

He was not ready to say there was no God, nor that he did not believe in the wickedness of man or of himself, or the temptations of the Devil. But he knew, he understood now, that his God, the God that was preached to him throughout his life, was not and had never listened to his prayers.

Will let out a slow breath. He let the realization, the acceptance, settle over his shivering body, his body that had never felt God's love.

He only let himself think of Hannibal's soft foreign words, his hands, his warm embrace for a moment, before he dunked his head under the harshly cold water. Moments later, he came up gasping and wiped the water now streaming from his hair and down his face and neck. A baptism of a kind, he thought blasphemously. Wholly his own.

 

Hannibal did not return from wherever he'd gone for hours.

Will went back into the house and searched for some clothing, eventually finding in a hidey-hole under Hannibal's pallet an extra tunic and trousers. They looked older than the clothes that Hannibal usually wore and there was not an undertunic to prevent the wool of the shirt from scratching at Will's skin. He was used to such a feeling anyway, from his habit, so donned the clothes and went about his usual work.

He fed the chickens and the heifer, who mooed at him graciously. He then cleaned and straightened inside the house. Once that was done, he went out to the garden between the house and the woods and began to tend it. It would soon be time to harvest the small plot of barley and wheat, which Hannibal had planted in the spring and would see them through winter. Will wondered idly if Hannibal had known he would bring back another mouth to feed and had planted more than he needed, or if they would feel the gnaw of hunger in the cold days that would come.

After a while, Will heard a strange sound from the woods, almost like a hacking cough. He turned, grasping hard at his spade, and saw a dog, mud-covered and slightly limping, loping down the well-trod path Will had seen Hannibal emerge from so many times. Will stood and, without really thinking, whistled.

The dog stopped dead, startled, then perked his ears towards Will. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth and he came directly to Will. He made huffing, happy sounds as Will bent to let him sniff at his hand, licking Will's fingers before they began to pet his head and scratch his ears.

When Will's attention made him so excited he planted his injured paw too hard on the ground, the dog whined and snapped, shying away slightly, before Will could coax him back with a soft croon. The dog was surprisingly patient while Will examined the injury, cooing and hushing as he palpitated the wound. Will's admittedly inexpert opinion soon settled on the idea that it was a sprain of the dog's paw and not a break, but he urged the poor creature into the house regardless and soothed him while he wrapped the foot.

It didn't occur to Will to worry that Hannibal may not wish to have a dog in his home until he heard the sounds of his footsteps returning that evening. Will had reheated the stew from the previous night and the dog's head was resting in his lap as he stirred the pot.

At the sound of Hannibal's approach the dog perked up, nostrils flaring, and began to growl low in the direction of the back door, near the byre. The heifer groaned her displeasure at the noise as Hannibal pushed the door open. Will had to push the dog up and behind him to stop the animal from lunging at Hannibal, who dropped the large sack he was carrying and crouched in surprise, ready to stave off an attack.

Will hushed desperately at the dog and stretched a warning hand out to Hannibal. "It's all right," he told them both at once. "It's all right." Shushing again, he held the dog as his growls turned to whines and his whole body shook.

Hannibal straightened, looking at the dog with a strangely cool detachment. "You have found a champion, little one," he said.

"I'm sorry," Will said, panicked by the dog's unfriendly reaction. "He's hurt. I don't know why he thinks you're a threat. Please don't make me put him out."

Hannibal blinked and said nothing, standing still in the doorway as the dog finally calmed down. "You feel very strongly about it, then," Hannibal said after a while.

"I know he'll be another mouth to feed," Will began, but Hannibal waved his hand.

He said, "He's a hunting breed. You can tell by his build. He can work for his supper."

Will looked up from where his eyes had fallen to the dog's still raised hackles. "Just like that?" he asked.

Hannibal's gaze did not waver. "I lack the desire for the kind of companionship such an animal offers. That does not mean I would deny you that comfort. If you want the dog to stay, he will."

Will smiled and nodded, feeling strangely warm and unable to meet Hannibal's eyes any longer. He stroked the head of the dog, who was still rigid and shivering. "When I woke this morning," he said quietly, "you weren't here."

Hannibal still had not moved from the doorway and now looked almost as spooked as the dog. It was a subtle change in his posture and Will would not have noticed it had he not spent so much of his time watching Hannibal. "You felt my absence," he said, and though it was not really a question, Will heard uncertainty in his voice.

"You thought I wouldn't?" Will asked.

Hannibal's expression seemed calm, but everything else about his body looked stiff, uncomfortable. "I had not..." he began to say, but seemed unable to complete the thought. "Forgive me," he said finally.

He picked up his sack, which looked heavy, and laid it down again nearer to the fire. He reached inside and tossed what looked like a rib to the dog, who snapped it up immediately. Will glanced curiously inside the sack, which was coated in blood and contained several cuts of fresh meat. "You butchered another animal in the forest?"

Hannibal nodded. 

"You really don't have to spare me," Will said, turning his eyes to where the dog was happily gnawing on the delicate bone. "I could help you."

"You will help tomorrow," Hannibal said serenely. He pulled what looked like a haunch out now and laid it down on the slab next to the fire. "The butchering is a task I prefer to do myself." He looked up at Will. "I do believe that you have the stomach for it, little one."

Will made a face at the diminutive name and something in Hannibal's eyes turned bright. "It was another pig?" Will asked, eyeing the haunch. It seemed so large.

"Yes," Hannibal answered. Something about his tone didn't sit right with Will, but he stopped thinking about it as soon as Hannibal added, "I'm sorry we won't be able to fish tomorrow because of all the work preserving the meat will require. I stumbled upon him as I was searching for plants and could not resist."

Will blushed, remembering the ridiculous conversation they'd had. "I don't...I mean, it's fine."

Hannibal tilted his head. "You have changed your mind since last night? You no longer like to fish?"

"No, I do," Will protested. "It's just...not so important."

Hannibal had moved to store the sack of meat in a cooler area, away from the fire. He returned now, near to Will, to inspect the pot and rub some herb across the haunch that he'd placed on the slab. He said, "Outside of what we must do to survive in this place and through the winter, little one, what you desire is of great importance to me. It's...there is a word." He said something in his own tongue and looked clearly aggrieved he could not think, or did not know, of the English equivalent.

Will frowned and supplied, though he hardly thought it would be the case, "Priority?"

Hannibal beamed. "Yes. That. What you desire is my priority." It was the first time Will had ever seen such a display of emotion in Hannibal's facial expression.

Will gaped at him. "Why?" He blurted.

Hannibal's eyes caught Will's as he answered, "Because I stole you from a place that cared nothing for you or your desires. You are a trampled flower, little one, and I would see you take root, reach for the sun. Bloom."

There was a pressure in Will's chest as he stared at Hannibal and processed his words. It grew and grew and began to hurt as Hannibal continued to speak. "These monks, these men of your god, Will, they wanted only your body. To control it. To use your hands and break your back. To fill your mind with rules and fear and shame so that you would do their work for them and not think, not see, what you could be without them."

Will realized he was shaking his head. His stomach turned and his chest hurt as he fought to control his breathing. This was too much, too far. "And you," Will accused. "You will show me a better way? If I follow _your_ Word?"

"There is no Word," Hannibal answered. "There is only the world. I would show it to you. But you do not need me to lift your face to the sun, little one. I only wish to watch you grow."

"Grow away from God," Will said.

Hannibal was clear-eyed. Sincere. "Away from his cage," he said. "Yes."

Hannibal, who knelt near the fire, was now cast in red and orange as the house had darkened in the waning sunlight. The bones of his face were shadowed skull-like and his eyes were dark. "Are you a devil?" Will asked. He didn't feel afraid. But the words Hannibal had spoken sounded so much like temptation. The way he looked at Will, they way they'd touched, last night and on the ship, it was forbidden and wicked, impure. It felt too good to be righteous. "Please, tell me the truth."

Hannibal leaned toward Will and his eyes were smiling again. "Will," he said. "Devils are no more real to me than your god is. If your god is real to you, perhaps I am a devil."

Will shook his head. This was not the answer he wanted.

What he wanted was a denial, then it would be a lie and he would know. He realized he shouldn't have asked. What devil would admit his nature? What trickster would reveal the game?

What Will wanted too was for Hannibal's words to not always sound so much like the truth. He was beginning to feel as though the years he'd spent in the monastery had been an imprisonment. That it was Hannibal who had somehow freed him. But wouldn't that be the kind of trickery a devil would foment in the mind of an innocent?

Will wanted to laugh and cry at once. Had he ever been an innocent? Perhaps not with his uncanny talents. 

Hannibal tilted his head curiously. He asked, "If you will not pray to your god, if you do not love your god, why should you care if I am a devil?"

Will did not answer.

The dog, finished with his bone, gave Hannibal a wide berth as he ambled over to settle down on the floor and rest his head against Will's knee. Will scratched at the dog's ears and he gave a soft woof of happiness. Will, shamefully, thought of his own reaction to Hannibal's gentle caresses, and how he longed to bend his body low, in the way of a whining pup, and rest his head in Hannibal's lap.

It had felt so easy last night.

Will looked up at Hannibal. "I don't," he said softly. "I don't care what you are."

"No?" Hannibal's expression was unreadable and Will tried, but could not discern his thoughts.

"If you are a devil, I don't care. And I can't think of anything else you could be, you are so wicked and strange." Will turned to face Hannibal. The dog turned his head away from Will, rolling over on the floor beside him.

Something was moving through Will, pumping in his blood, catching his breath in his throat. "Have you bewitched me? Cast me under some spell? Witches are the servants of devils, did you know? But I don't believe you could ever be the servant of some other creature. You are nothing if not a master."

Hannibal's eyes were bright again. "I believe no more in witches, little one, than I do in devils. Spells are of man's making and they live in the body and the mind. I cannot make you want or do anything you would or could not desire for yourself."

Will frowned, not entirely pleased to have blame for the strange way he felt laid solely at his feet. It wasn't anything he'd asked for, though it must be something he desired. He realized, then, that he wanted, so badly, for Hannibal to touch him. But Hannibal did not.

Will could not bring himself to be the one to move closer. So he asked, "What do you believe, Hannibal? If not in your gods or mine?"

"I believe in myself," Hannibal replied. "I have survived many dangers, many hardships, have accomplished many things in my life and never have I felt the hand of any god upon me. I am who I am and have become so through my own deeds and thoughts. There is nothing else."

Will tilted his head, still frowning. "It must be very difficult."

"No more than faith in the indifferent power that you profess. To me, giving over control of your fate in the way your god demands would be too high a price," Hannibal replied. 

Will nodded. That, somehow, he understood. Faith was difficult. Will was starting to wonder, having nothing and no one left to tie him to his own god if it was worth it. He shivered as the realization swept over him. Did he now have more faith in himself than God? Or, did he only think this way because it would be so much easier to give in to the temptation Hannibal was beginning to embody in his mind. 

He looked at his captor, cast in the orange-red glow of the fire between them. Will was certain his faith in Hannibal now far surpassed anything he'd ever felt for the Christian God.

"It must be lonely too," he said finally.

Hannibal blinked, as though startled. "There is peace in solitude," he said.

Will smiled softly, looking down to stroke the dog's head again. "Yes. And there can still be loneliness in a crowded room." He had always known that to be true.

"Ah, little one," Hannibal said. Will looked up to see a rueful smile on Hannibal's face. "The food is ready."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately this is all I have written right now. I promise to come back eventually, I just don't know how fast I will be.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has a dog and fishes and grows evem closer to Hannibal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized it's somehow been almost a year since I last posted. This is probably a short chapter, but its what I've written in the last 12 months. And it has an ok ending. We'll see where else it goes.

It took three days to preserve the meat from this second pig of Hannibal's. It must have been a large animal, larger than the first Will had helped him prepare. He commented on the size and amount of the meat only once. Hannibal said nothing in reply, only looked expectantly into Will's eyes, as though he were waiting for another, better observation. Will looked away then and they did not speak for a while. The silence was broken when Hannibal explained a particular trick he wanted Will to use to slice the back meat for smoking.

On the fourth day after the dog appeared, Hannibal let Will sleep late into the morning. Will had begun to count time by events, as Hannibal never spoke of days of the week and there was no change in routine--no Sunday Mass--to mark the passage of the days. Will was perturbed to find that it was in fact the way the rituals of his faith marked time that he missed the most from his old life.

His old life, replaced by this new life with Hannibal and with the dog, who had taken to following Will around the homestead. Neither of them were chained, but still they stayed. Will called the dog good and named him Noll after one of the younger lay monks from the Abbey, who had always been smiling, even when they worked hard and had little to eat in the lean months.

Hannibal had stoked the fire recently. The room was warm when Will pulled himself from under his blankets. He smiled, remembering the endlessly cold mornings at the abbey. He shook his head, feeling silly for so often letting his mind retreat to the past. He remembered what Hannibal had said the night Will had thought he wanted to run away.

_Only do things you like_.

Will should not think on his old life. He had never truly liked it. Not like he liked this place, this beautiful country, this warm house. He'd once felt some kind of satisfaction for never breaking under the strain of his work in the field and the yard at the abbey. But he'd never felt the strange comfort and joy of purpose that he felt when he worked with Hannibal, farming his land and preserving his food. 

From their hands, their life-- their survival--would spring. Will had never felt so close, so in control, of his future as he felt when they'd tucked the dried, salted pork away in the cold store carved into hard rock underneath Hannibal's house. That meat would see them through the long dark of the winter, Hannibal had told him. He had much more than last year, much more than they both would need to stave off starvation, Hannibal said, because of Will.

"I'm glad you are awake, little one," Hannibal spoke from the door of his house that faced the water.

Will looked up at him and smiled when he saw a long line and several hooks in Hannibal's hands. 

Hannibal asked, "Would you like to fish with me today, Will?"

Will, smiling even more broadly, nodded and followed Hannibal hastily to the river bank. They walked out onto the dock. Will took a long, neatly woven line from Hannibal's strong fingers and plucked one of the hooks from his open palm. 

"You are familiar with the method," Hannibal said.

Will flashed him a wry smirk. "I imagine it's the same everywhere, don't you?" Will tied the hook onto the line as though he'd done it last only days ago and not a decade. His father had fished with nets of course, but sometimes they had tied up long lines across nearby streams that fed into the sea, or Will had used his own line to pass the long hours on his father's boat. 

As his fingers lengthened the slack and pulled it up again, testing a long disused memory of his body, he felt something light fill up his chest. He was smiling again, looking down at the line, and across the water, and then, finally, to Hannibal, who was watching him. There was no small amount of pleasure, even awe, in Hannibal's eyes and mouth as he looked at Will.

Will cast his line and sat down upon the dock, sinking his bare feet into the chilling water. "Just tell me if I do it in some way you wouldn't," he said.

Hannibal sat down beside him and cast his own line. "Of course," he replied.

 

They roasted three fish that night and pickled five more. Will's haul had been prodigious, while somehow Hannibal's had been less so. Will suspected he hadn't been giving the task his full attention. Warmth curled in his belly and across his cheeks as he thought of Hannibal's eyes straying from the water, from their task, and to Will's busy hands and his frown of concentration. 

Noll had paced at their backs earlier that morning, but soon had settled curled next to Will. Will and the dog spent much of the rest of the rapidly chilling fall that way, settled together on the dock. Hannibal, saying nothing, but brushing an encouraging hand across Will’s shoulders, left them to the fish and busied himself in the garden, the house, and the woods behind his small field.

Will let his mind wander, draw into himself and out into the world, as his fingers waited patiently, reflexively tightening to bring in fish after fish, day after day. He felt peaceful, happy, and pleasantly useful, especially when Hannibal said one night, with a profoundly pleased light in his eyes that they had so much fish, they must go to the town and barter it away.

“I should go as well?” Will asked. He realized, while he felt some trepidation, he was also aware of a strange kind of excitement within himself.

“Yes, of course,” Hannibal replied. “I would have you use your wonderful gift for me, little one.”

Will bit back an assertion that the gift could not be wonderful if it were so wicked. He understood those were the words the monks and the Fathers had told him. The words Hannibal had said kept him caged at the Abbey, in body and mind.

He’d found himself contemplating such a cage. The words of the monks and the Word of God. What was wickedness truly, he’d begun to wonder by himself at the water. He’d thought on Noll, who used the gifts god granted to his kind with no apparent thought or question, no hesitation. And why shouldn’t Will? As long as he did no harm, he did not think a sense, so similar a thing to smell or sight or hearing--that which all creatures used and thrived upon--could be thought of as a wickedness.

When Will did not speak right away, Hannibal shifted and considered him carefully. Will thought perhaps Hannibal was able to tell, in some look on Will’s face or change in the set of his shoulders, that Will was thinking of God and his old life, questioning himself and the world. Will found himself smiling and Hannibal tilted his head in silent inquiry. They had become proficient in speaking with few words in the past weeks.

“Did you know,” Will said softly, “that I no longer think of myself as a monk?”

Hannibal did not move. His hands, which had been stirring the pot over the fire, slowed and stilled.

Will continued, his voice gone slightly shaky, “In my mind, I am not one of them. They are monks. They believe what they have been taught. They live in the Abbey. They work for the glory of God. I do not.”

“You live here now,” Hannibal said. His eyes had fallen to the fire. His hands quickened, turning the stew. 

“I work for myself,” Will told him. It felt significant to say so. “And for you.”

Hannibal’s expression changed minutely, a hardening in the set of his jaw. “We work together,” he said. Will knew Hannibal had not taken Will because he wanted a servant. Will had never been a true slave to Hannibal.

“Yes. But, I think I should walk behind you when we go into the town,” Will replied. “I think I should keep my eyes on the ground. It is not so important that people understand this as we do.”

Hannibal looked up from the fire and smiled. “I thought so, as well, little one.” After a moment his gaze fell to Noll, sitting with a bone at Will’s feet. Hannibal’s expression dimmed to a neutral mask. “We will not take the dog.”

Will frowned. “I can’t say he won’t follow--”

Hannibal’s eyes cut to Will’s and they were suddenly cold. “Then we will chain him.” He picked two bowls up from where they were warming near the coals and poured out a portion of the stew for them both. He passed one to Will without another word.

Will ate. Chewing slowly on the food and the idea that, while Will had never been a true slave-- never beaten, never broken--there had never been a question as to who was the master. 

Will had always been subordinate. At home with his family, at the Abbey, and even here. His lot was never to lead. He looked at Hannibal, who he trusted now because...because he must. And Hannibal had been kind and strange and Will must believe in something or--he did not know. Will did not want to go back to the Abbey and he knew there was nowhere else for him.

Hannibal could chain the dog, or chain Will again, if it pleased him, and Will was not sure he would want to leave this place, his new home.

He thought Hannibal might like to know such a thing, but he could not speak the words. He held them in his mouth and suddenly wanted to press his body to Hannibal’s. It would be good for Hannibal to know how much he did not want to leave. It would be a good way to show him, since Will could not speak of it.

Will no longer believed the ways bodies wanted each other was the work of the Devil. He had not as a young boy, having seen the joy his parents had taken in such activities in their one room cottage. He had only believed in such evil at the Abbey because it was important to him at the beginning of his time there to absorb everything, to be as good as possible, and be right with God. He realized now how easily he had let the monks and priests and godly men around him shape his thoughts.

It occurred to him suddenly how much his mind had turned from that world in the few months he had lived with his captor.

Hannibal, his captor. Hannibal, his master. His friend.

Hannibal’s words slowly churning in his mind as he stared out into the lapping waves of the quiet river. As he stared into the crackling, dancing fire. As he stared into Hannibal’s strange, dark eyes, which were the slightly purpled color of the blood that had been painted onto the crucifix that had hung upon the High Altar in the church. Will’s mind had changed, for Hannibal.

Will set his food aside. Hannibal met Will’s eyes and did the same. 

As so often was his wont, Hannibal waited for Will to speak.

Will’s lips had gone dry and he licked them slowly. His head felt light on his shoulders, his mind reeling. “I am changed,” he said. “I am changing and I don’t know how to stop.”

Hannibal’s expression did not change. “Do you wish to?”

Will shook his head no, but said, “I would have, I think.”

Hannibal now actually looked a little impatient with him. “The past does not matter,” he hissed lowly. “It is dead and we are not.” He leaned closer to Will. His eyes were bright again with something fierce and not a little wild. “Do you wish to be other than you are now, Will?” He demanded.

Will closed the space between them. He pressed his lips firmly to Hannibal’s, for only a brief moment. When Hannibal’s mouth opened slightly to pull Will’s lips into his, Will pulled back, feeling shaken. He looked up into Hannibal’s eyes and said, “No.” His heart was pounding.

Hannibal gathered Will into his arms, pulling him tight against his chest. He smiled and Will smiled back

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and constructive, polite crit is most welcome. Especially about any gross historical inaccuracies. 
> 
> Also, this is not as beta read as I would like. If anybody wants to volunteer for the job, let me know in a comment or ask on tumblr. Find me @ norgbelulah there and on twitter.


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